Joy overflows, Allah is thanked and call goes out for revenge

Iraqis, including a boy brandishing a toy gun, celebrate in the streets of Auburn. Photo: Dean Sewell

On the steps of the Ahl-Al-Bait Islamic Centre in Auburn Iraqi Australians were counting their dead and their blessings.

Shiite refugees such as Jawad Alsharifi, who lost 50 of his extended family - 34 of whom were discovered in mass graves - were now celebrating the capture of the man they blame for giving the execution orders.

"I would kill him with my own hands if I could," Mr Alsharifi said after he grabbed the microphone to add his condemnation of Saddam Hussein, an enduring figure of his nightmares.

Most of the gathering had shrugged off the effects of a sleepless night, having stayed up to listen to the latest reports of Saddam's capture and fielded jubilant calls from relatives and friends.

Revenge and justice were foremost in the minds of 80 or so Iraqis who gathered outside the prayer centre, some venturing in to give thanks to Allah, others slapping newspaper images of the dishevelled, bearded former dictator with the soles of their shoes, the ultimate form of insult in the Arab world.

Wearing an unbreakable, Cheshire-cat-sized grin, Ali Al-Ali discharged himself from Westmead Hospital an hour before to attend the parade. His left leg was bandaged and he carried 13 stitches as a result of a car accident, but nothing was going to stop him enjoying history-in-the-making.

"Today, Iraq is born again. We have to thank George Bush, he is just an angel, and we have to thank the coalition army."

While not everyone was as enthusiastic for the US, the consensus among Iraqi Australians was that Saddam should be tried in an Iraqi court, not an international tribunal, accountable then to the Iraqi people he had terrorised.

Suha Al Ranahi, homesick for her two sisters and the family home she had left behind when she had fled Iraq after the failed Shiite uprising in 1991, was in no forgiving mood.

"He killed thousands of our sons, he lost his two sons, his sisters are refugees, we are refugees," said the mother of four from Campbelltown.

"He was scared for eight months; we were scared for 20 years of our life. He has suffered only 10 or 20 per cent what we have suffered."

It was a de facto national holiday for most Iraqi Australians. Trailing the parade of 80 cheering Iraqis chanting "Death penalty for Saddam" through Auburn's commercial centre were veiled Iraqi women and children.

Donya Khanteeb brought her three Australian-born children to the parade so the day could be etched in their memories, even if her homeland of Iraq never was.

"Today is a holiday. Most of my friends have let their children stay home from school."

Some of those children sat on the shoulders of their fathers, one or two with plastic guns in their hands, acting as if to fire in the air, mimicking the Wild West-passion of Baghdad streets.